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Repower Pennsylvania

From smog-emitting coal plants to dangerous Marcellus Shale drilling to the toxic threat of nuclear power, the ways that we produce and use energy in Pennsylvania have a severe impact on our environment and health. PennEnvironment is working toward a new energy future that promotes clean, renewable energy and uses efficient technologies to help protect the planet.

Repower Pennsylvania

Coal, gas and nuclear — we can do better

The ways that we produce and use energy in Pennsylvania have a severe impact on our environment and health. PennEnvironment is working toward a new energy future that promotes clean, renewable energy and uses efficient technologies to help protect the planet.

Pennsylvania could be doing a lot better when it comes to the ways we use and produce our energy. Dirty, coal-fired power plants pollute our air with smog and soot, and our rivers and streams with mercury. Marcellus Shale gas drilling contaminates our streams and destroys our pristine forests. Nuclear power plants produce toxic waste, and pose the unlikely but catastrophic threat of a Fukushima-style disaster.

Powerful polluters push for the dirty energy status quo

Unfortunately, many electricity companies, coal companies and other polluters want to continue our reliance on dirty energy sources. These powerful interests are putting short-term profits ahead of our environment and health — and they have unfettered access and influence in the halls of the state capitol in Harrisburg and in Washington, D.C. Electric utilities spent more than $105 million on lobbying in 2011 alone. Now they're pushing to cut Pennsylvania's critical Advanced Energy Portfolio Standard, which supports clean energy sollutions like wind and solar.

Solar and wind offer path to a new energy future

At PennEnvironment, we have a different vision. We can get our energy from clean, renewable homegrown sources like wind and solar, while creating thousands of much-needed jobs in the state. We can achieve a new energy future where our homes and buildings create more clean energy than they need, where public transportation systems thrive and reduce our reliance on oil, and where technology allows our cars to get more than 100 miles to the gallon.

Pennsylvania has the technological know-how and renewable energy potential to clean up and modernize the way we produce energy. Clean, renewable energy sources are in abundance in Pennsylvania — especially wind and solar power — and they can help the Commonwealth decrease its reliance on dirtier, polluting forms of energy.

Clean Energy Updates

With solar power on the rise around the country, a national network of fossil fuel and utility-backed organizations have joined forces to put the brakes on this fast-growing pollution-free energy resource.

Solar power is clean, affordable and popular with the American people. The amount of solar energy installed in the U.S. has quadrupled in the last four years, and the U.S. has enough solar energy installed to power one in 20 American homes.

America’s solar progress is largely the result of bold, forward-thinking public policies that have created a strong solar industry while putting solar energy within the financial reach of millions more Americans.

Philadelphia’s public schools could cover nearly 40 percent of their energy needs by installing solar panels on their 100 acres of usable rooftop space. “Going solar” would save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars on electricity bills for school buildings, while creating local jobs, offering educational and training opportunities for city students and reducing pollution.